- Slovenians reject assisted-dying law in national referendum
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Slovenians on Sunday voted to suspend a new law to legalise assisted dying in a referendum held after critics mounted a campaign against the legislation. Around 53 percent of voters had rejected the law, while 47 percent voted in favour, meaning its implementation will be suspended for at least one year. Slovenia’s parliament had approved a law in July allowing assisted dying after a 2024 referendum supported it. But the new vote was called after a civil group, backed by the Catholic Church and the conservative parliamentary opposition, gathered 46,000 signatures in favour of a repeat, exceeding the 40,000 required.” (11/23/25)
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20251123-slovenia-assisted-dying-law-referendum
- Canada: Carney Says Regime Will Resume US Trade Talks “When Appropriate”
Source: US News & World Report
“Canada will resume trade discussions with the United States ‘when it’s appropriate,’ Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Sunday, noting he did not have a pressing issue to address with President Donald Trump. Trump last month suspended the talks over an anti-tariff advertisement issued by Ontario’s provincial government. ‘We are very busy with the future of Canada, and with new partnerships. There will be conversations with the president, probably in the next two weeks,’ Carney told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 leaders’ meeting in Johannesburg. ‘We will re-engage when it’s appropriate.'” (11/23/25)
- UK navy intercepts Russian corvette and tanker as Moscow steps up naval activity
Source: ABC News
“A U.K. patrol ship has intercepted a Russian corvette and a tanker after shadowing them through the English Channel, the Defense Ministry said Sunday, adding that Russian naval activity around U.K. waters had increased by 30% over the past two years. With the past two weeks, the patrol ship HMS Severn intercepted the Russian corvette RFN Stoikiy and tanker Yelnya as they sailed through the English Channel, the ministry said. The Severn eventually handed over monitoring duties to an unidentified NATO ally off the coast of Brittany. … The news comes just days after Defense Secretary John Healey told reporters that the Russian spy ship Yantar had aimed lasers at the pilots of surveillance aircraft monitoring its activities off the coast of Scotland.” (11/23/25)
- Two socialists walk into the White House
Source: Washington Post
by the editorial board“What are a few deportation threats among friends? President Donald Trump has called Zohran Mamdani a ‘100% Communist lunatic’ who ‘needs to be DEPORTED.’ Mamdani called the president a ‘despot,’ promising to ‘Trump-proof’ New York. Yet they couldn’t have been chummier in their Oval Office meeting on Friday. What’s happening here? Trump loves populists and winners, and Mamdani is both. … This surreal scene is no bad thing for voters who have been told that the other side is the mortal enemy, though they might wonder how sincere each side was in their election insults. In reality, Mamdani and Trump have some shared interests, and it’s not just about building more apartments and tackling inflation. Both men are looking to seize more executive power, deepen the reach of the state into people’s everyday lives and bring government to bear on businesses and entrepreneurs who won’t fall in line.” (11/21/25)
- Taiwan: Takaichi Strikes a Long-Needed Blow Against “Strategic Ambiguity”
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“Taiwan is not now, and never has been, part of the People’s Republic of China. … But whenever any politician on the world stage publicly mentions, or even alludes to, that fact, Chinese politicians rattle their sabers militarily while threatening, ‘diplomatically,’ to throw themselves on the floor and hold their breath until they turn blue. To placate Beijing, western regimes have generally adopted policies of ‘strategic ambiguity.’ They conduct friendly relations with Taiwan while not ‘recognizing’ its status as independent, and provide Taiwan with military assistance of various kinds while very carefully NOT openly saying they’d help it defend itself against invasion. ‘Strategic ambiguity’ is the worst of two worlds when it comes to foreign policy.” (11/23/25)
- The Democratic Party Is Offering a False Choice Between Socialism and Technocracy
Source: Reason
by Jacob R Swartz“The unity that once held the Democratic Party together has given way to ideological meandering, oscillating between ‘woke’ moralistic left-wing populism and technocratic managerialism. These two impulses now define its fractured identity: the former emerging from the Occupy movement and the momentum of Bernie Sanders'[s] presidential campaigns, the latter from the evolution of the Clinton-era ‘New Democrat’ consensus. The 2025 elections crystallized the divide through two major victories — socialist outsider Zohran Mamdani in New York City and Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who’s more in line with the neoliberal wing. Each has been called the party’s ‘future,’ though their wins more clearly reveal how ideologically hollow the party’s core has become.” (11/23/25)
- MAGA’s $300 million heist
Source: The Watch
by Radley Balko“In the 15 years between 2009 and 2024, more than 500 people in Texas were exonerated after being imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. … The state paid them just under $156 million …. Last year, New York City paid out $205 million to settle 956 lawsuits alleging police abuse. … I bring up these figures because, according to multiple reports, Donald Trump is about to order the government to pay him ‘damages’ for the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago mansion and for special prosecutor Jack Smith’s two investigations of him …. He’s going to pay himself $230 million. So Trump — who didn’t spend a minute behind bars — [is] about to swindle about 50 percent more than the total amount of money paid to the 97 innocent people who were incarcerated for more than 1,200 years in Texas. Or about 12 percent more than the total paid last year to 957 victims of police brutality in New York City.” (11/21/25)
- Headless politics
Source: The Peaceful Revolutionist
by David S D’Amato“Although anarchism is usually treated as an outlier political philosophy, structurally it describes the conditions under which most human groups have actually governed themselves before the formation of the state. Many human communities still of course live beyond the reaches of the murdering, pathological state. … Whatever we think of the way these societies are structured and governed, it is clear that there are elements of intentional power-preemption, centrifugal mechanisms for maintaining a deliberately headless politics.” (11/22/25)
- Why We Must Replace the Global Economic System Built by the 1%
Source: Inequality.org
by Jenny Ricks & Deepak Xavier“This year’s G20 Leaders Summit is taking place in Johannesburg, a short distance from Constitution Hill, a former prison complex that once held Nelson Mandela and other South African democracy fighters. As the world’s most powerful leaders meet behind closed doors, this former apartheid prison turned museum will publicly write another page in the history of global economic emancipation. Movements, workers, activists, thinkers, creatives, artists, and communities from across South Africa, Africa, Asia, and Latin America are gathering for a three-day People’s Summit for Economic Justice — a counter to the G20 — to build the power of the 99 percent.” (11/22/25)
- The Neo-Right’s Multi-Front Revolt Against America
Source: The UnPopulist
by William Galston“After moderate Republican candidates lost twice to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton became the favorite to succeed him, the revolt that had begun with the Tea Party during the Great Recession shattered the GOP’s “let us continue as usual” faction and led to Donald Trump’s improbable nomination as the Republican standard-bearer. His longstanding opposition to free trade, international commitments, and mass immigration soon came to dominate a radically changed party. Nobody could accuse Trump of having a well-developed conservative philosophy, but his iconoclastic impulses opened the door to restless intellectuals vying to systematize his impulses into a New Right.” (11/23/25)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-neo-rights-multi-front-revolt
- Wendell Berry’s Epilogue
Source: Law & Liberty
by Nadya Williams“Wendell Berry’s Port William novels invite reflection on whether the meek might not, after all, inherit the Earth.” (11/21/25)
- Ukraine’s fronts are not only in the war
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“Each approaching winter since 2022, besieged Ukrainians have braced for more Russian attacks on the energy installations they rely on to survive the harsh cold of the Eurasian steppe. This year, they are confronting two additional jolts: Anti-corruption agencies have revealed high-level graft, with the equivalent of $100 million siphoned off from funds intended to defend this very same energy infrastructure. And many Ukrainians are discomfited by reports of a U.S.-Russia ‘peace plan’ – negotiated without Ukraine’s involvement. Some Ukrainian officials believe the timing is designed by the United States to use the corruption crisis to pressure the president into concessions.” (11/21/25)
- Unattended Baggage, episode 318
Source: Unattended Baggage
“Maybe we could all use some ‘Quiet Time.'” (11/22/25)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-318-maybe-we-could-all-use
- How to Fix It with John Avlon, 11/23/25
Source: The Bulwark
“Leaders Without Character Break Democracies (w/ Ryan Holiday).” (11/23/25)
- The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan, 11/21/25
Source: The Weekly Dish
“Mark Halperin On Covering Presidents.” (11/21/25)
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/mark-halperin-on-covering-presidents